Born in New York City, Hadley’s initial exposure to the arts, while immersive, was formally observational. According to the young artist, creating was strictly a pastime, and not to be engaged with educationally. Despite consistent encouragement to pursue the arts from her grandmother, a former opera singer and patron of the arts herself, it wasn’t until her undergraduate degree that Hadley assumed an academic approach to visual and fine arts.

In May of 2024, Hadley completed her Bachelor of Arts in English, a Modernist Literature concentration, and Studio Art, an Oil Painting concentration at the University of Virginia. Hadley’s undergraduate thesis work began as an exploration of what it means to have a marketable ‘style’. The purpose was to break down the mental bumper rails that come with the self-awareness and desire to have a ‘style’ by pushing herself to create in head spaces of total frustration and exasperation. Such induced flow states as these were achieved by constantly creating and aiming for quantity.

Through rapid production and repetition of work, playful and anxious themes emerged from her work, no doubt pulling from her urban upbringing and fascination with illustrated children’s books.Her work can be understood, retrospectively, as an unconscious rectifying of the polarity of personhood. Absurdity and dread are forced to echo off each other to fabricate a complicated and emotional atmosphere. She is most attracted to the world-building that can be held in a singular piece.